Dean gives colour and finish advice as part of decorating jobs in Rectory Farm, NN3, about 4.2 miles north-east of Northampton town centre. Advice covers brighter schemes for small terraced rooms, whole-house plans for the 1980s detached closes and lease rules on exterior colours.
Free to choose, unless your lease says otherwise
Rectory Farm has no conservation area and no Article 4 direction in the records we have checked, and no listed buildings are recorded on the estate. Nearly every house dates from 1973 to 1992, with some newer infill since, all built with cavity walls and modern materials, so there is no heritage reason to keep a front door in a period shade or to avoid a strong colour on a porch or garage door. Colour choice here is unusually open.
The one thing to check is ownership. In the northern part of the estate, Census 2021 recorded 9.7% of homes in shared ownership and 35.5% socially rented. Housing association and council leases often require consent before exterior changes, which can include a new front-door colour or painting a previously bare panel. Inside, the decision is normally yours, but it is worth reading the lease before you settle on anything for the outside.
Getting more light into a compact terraced room
The 1970s terraces around Olden Road, Crowthorp Road and Ermine Road have small rooms. When a room’s window faces north the light is cool and flat, and a fashionable grey can turn the room dull and cold by mid-afternoon. A few principles help:
- Look at the light reflectance value on the tin or chart. Shades with a higher figure bounce more daylight back into the room.
- In north-facing rooms, warm off-whites and soft stone colours hold up better than blue-based greys.
- Run one colour from the hall up the stairs and across the landing, so a narrow layout reads as one space rather than three cramped ones.
- Paint doors and skirtings close to the wall colour, a shade or two lighter, so they do not break up a short wall.
Dean brings sample pots to look at on your own walls at the time of day you use the room, because a swatch under shop lighting tells you very little about a back bedroom in December.
Planning a whole house in the detached closes
Around Deansway and Morgan, Riley, Healey and Bentley Closes, most homes are detached, built between 1983 and 1992, and nearly nine in ten are owner-occupied. Owners who stay that long often get more from a whole-house plan than from picking a colour room by room. A workable approach is a small family of three or four related colours that flow between rooms, one deeper accent kept for a dining room or study, and one white used on every ceiling and all the woodwork.
The original 1980s softwood doors and skirtings in many of these houses are under several coats of solvent gloss that has gone yellow with age. If a crisp white is part of the plan, it is worth knowing that a water-based satin on properly prepared woodwork keeps its colour far longer than oil-based gloss. Outside, garage doors and porch canopies look most settled when they pick up the colour of the front door or the window frames.
Sheen and colour on walls that run damp
Some 1970s houses on Mortar Pit Road and Collyweston Road have cavity walls with little or no insulation, and their bathrooms and outside-wall bedrooms are prone to condensation. Mould-resistant and bathroom emulsions come in fewer sheens than standard paint, and some ranges cannot be tinted to every shade. Dean will point you towards colours available in those products, so you do not fall for a shade that only comes in an ordinary matt that will not cope with damp.
For rented homes and family hallways, the choice is between washability and forgiveness. A mid-sheen wipes clean easily but shows every dent and ripple in older plaster, while a durable matt hides more and still takes a damp cloth. The main colour and finish advice page explains how light direction affects colour. Advice is usually given alongside interior painting, and the Rectory Farm area page covers the rest of our work on the estate.
Last updated by Dean, DH Painter & Decorator.
